“We are to endure what others cannot 

and practice what others cannot achieve.” 

These words from Pure Land Patriarch Yinguang were spoken to guide and encourage us. While others engage in perceived pleasures, and are so often enthralled by them, we are to challenge ourselves to seek other rewards.

Like meeting basic needs instead of indulging ourselves.

Knowing that being uncomfortable is OK, with no need to remedy it.

Living simply so that others will have a better chance at survival, now and in the future.

Seeking true joy rather than fleeting, often hedonistic, worldly happiness.

In lives uncountable, we existed in ignorance because good teachers were absent. And so we squandered our good fortune and burned our merits with our anger. But in some other lives, we practiced. Doing so, we set the stage for this lifetime, this rarest of opportunities to practice what so many others do not have the conditions or inclination to.

And so as the Master wisely advised, we are to practice. Do not follow the others who do not.